Obvious
by phoebenpiper
Summary: It's obvious why Ryan and Chad are reacting differently to their high school graduation. Movie cannon, takes place immediately after HSM3. Inspired by Hey Monday song "Obvious". Ryan/Chad pairing.


**Obvious**, by phoebenpiper

As the song faded out, Ryan vaguely wondered what time it was. Obviously it was late -- otherwise he wouldn't be the only one left on the dance floor. But Coach Bolton hadn't come out to tell him to leave yet, so it couldn't be _that_ late.

The opening strains of the next song started and all thoughts about time or otherwise fled as Ryan began dancing again. Like his sister, he loved to perform, but this was truly his favorite way to dance, giving his mind and body over to the music and blissfully dancing with abandon. He realized that this was what true "freedom" felt like.

Especially tonight. Like his fellow seniors, he was happy that graduation was over and done with. And like Kelsi, he was thrilled that he'd be attending Juilliard in the fall. But what Ryan was feeling tonight went beyond all that. He felt almost like a balloon, suddenly free of its string, floating away into the starry night sky. If he'd paused to think, it would've been obvious why he was feeling so free at finally being out of high school.

But pausing was out of the question as long as the music continued to play.

----

Chad looked out over the Boltons' backyard and sighed. He'd spent half his life in this yard and half his playtime in this treehouse, but somehow tonight everything looked different; everything _felt_ different.

Especially him. He knew he should be happy. After all, he was a high school graduate now! He had a school-less summer stretching out in front of him -- three whole months to hang out at Lava Springs with Troy and the other Wildcats before starting at U of A in the fall with his basketball scholarship. His life was exactly on track! Yet despite all this, Chad felt lost and uncertain, as if the safety net that had been always been there was suddenly gone, leaving him to walk the tightrope all alone.

Looking down at the yard, Chad realized he really _was_ alone. Just hours earlier the yard had been full of his family and friends, celebrating this great rite of passage with a celebratory BBQ. As the party wore on and it grew late, his parents eventually went home, as did the other adults. Even Coach Bolton and his wife had gone inside awhile ago. Then, just as the Wildcats were starting to pair off, Taylor's sister had come to pick her up, leaving Chad alone with nothing to do except sit in Troy's treehouse, drink some of the beer that Jason had snuck in, and wonder what his best friend might be doing with Gabriella. Chad hadn't even noticed everyone else going inside, but now he realized the entire yard was empty except for himself and Ryan, who continued to dance down below.

Chad briefly watched the blond boy dance. Ryan looked so carefree and happy, without a care in the world. It was exactly how Chad wished he felt. It was how he knew he _should_ feel. And the fact that he didn't made him feel even more confused and upset.

He knew it was late and he should probably go home, or at least inside. But that would probably mean dealing with people, and the last thing he wanted to do was deal with people. Especially people who were thrilled about graduating. At least out here he only had _one_ person to deal with, and he was dancing far below Chad's swinging feet.

----

As Ryan spun around, a movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye. Looking up, he saw what had drawn his attention -- Chad's feet were swinging back and forth as they dangled from the treehouse high above Ryan's head. Ryan noticed that the basketball player didn't look like a recent graduate should – in fact, he looked the polar opposite of how Ryan was feeling tonight.

Ryan had never really given much thought to Chad Danforth. He was far from Ryan's idea of the perfect guy. Chad was merely the class clown, always hiding in the shadow of Troy Bolton, always keeping his true identity carefully closeted away. He did an amazing job of hiding it, too -- Ryan hadn't even realized the truth until that staff baseball game last summer when the electricity between the two of them had been palpable. Ryan sometimes wondered how much longer Chad would be successful at hiding the truth from others as well as himself. Self-deception, Ryan feared, would only make Chad miserable.

Like he looked tonight.

A thought started to creep into Ryan's brain. True, Chad wasn't really his type. But Zeke wasn't really Shar's type either. However, Zeke liked Sharpay, and she liked attention and pastries, so they both got something out of the deal.

Obviously Chad needed to embrace his true identity. The way Ryan saw it, he'd merely be doing Chad a favor!

Feeling suddenly reckless, Ryan called up, "Hey Danforth! Come down and dance with me."

Chad's mind had clearly been miles away because he stared blankly down at Ryan. "Huh?"

Ryan pretended to do sign language to help Chad understand. "You. Me. Here." Ryan did a shimmy, relishing the way that Chad's eyes unconsciously followed his swiveling hips. "Dance."

Chad laughed, and Ryan wondered if it was the first smile the basketball player had cracked all night. "Dude. How many times I gotta tell you -- I. Don't. Dance."

Now it was Ryan's turn to laugh. "Then whatd'ya call what you did in the spring show?"

"Basketball, of course."

"Of course!" Ryan pointed to the basketball sitting next to Chad in the treehouse. "Then bring your ball down here and you and I can do a little 'basketball' on the dance floor."

Chad shook his head. "Nah. But you go ahead." But Ryan wasn't in the mood for dancing anymore.

----

Chad wondered where Ryan had gone to. One moment the blond boy had been standing below, pestering him to come dance, and the next moment he was gone.

Not that Chad really cared. Ryan was the least of his worries tonight. Truth be told, Taylor had been at the top of _that_ list since she'd left the party.

Taylor had been his girlfriend for over a year now, and in three months she was moving 2000 miles away to go to Yale. But Chad didn't feel a thing: he wasn't sad to see her go, he wasn't afraid of missing her, he truly didn't even care. And that worried him. After all, Troy had changed his entire life plan in order to follow Gabriella out to California. Not that Chad _wanted _to go to Connecticut, but at least the thought should've crossed his mind, right? So why hadn't it? Why didn't the thought of saying goodbye to his girlfriend make him mopey and depressed like it had made Troy? Wasn't that how he was supposed to feel? And since he didn't, what did that mean?

Chad shook his head, trying to shake away the worry. Maybe it was the beer that was depressing him. Hadn't they learned in health class that beer was a depressant? But he'd felt depressed _before_ he started drinking. In fact, that's the entire reason why he'd _started_ drinking -- because depressed was the last feeling he'd wanted on his graduation night.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chad saw his basketball start to roll away and instinctively reached out to stop it. However, instead of grabbing the ball, his hand grabbed Ryan's foot as the boy knelt down to take a seat next to Chad.

"Oh!" Chad gasped, instantly pulling his hand back. He was surprised to see Ryan suddenly next to him, having not even heard the boy approach.

He was also uncomfortable that his basketball was now so far away. Ryan had carefully moved it aside in order to sit down, but Chad always liked to have his basketball close by, just in case. Just in case of _what_, he wasn't really sure, but he knew that having it far away made him nervous. Especially up here – what if it rolled off the edge?

That reminded Chad where they were, and he quickly warned, "This is Troy's treehouse, Evans – no one's supposed to be up here."

Ryan shrugged, unconcerned. "_You're_ up here."

"But that's different."

"So's this," Ryan said, holding up a full plastic cup.

Chad reluctantly took the cup and stared warily at its contents.

"What is it?"

Ryan smiled, teasing, "It's a magical potion that'll make you dance."

Chad laughed -- Ryan was always so dramatic.

"C'mon. Drink up," Ryan prodded.

Chad took a sip and felt the alcohol burn his throat. "What's _in_ here?" he coughed.

Ryan shrugged. "Not really sure. Jason handed it to me hours ago, and I never got up the nerve to drink it."

Chad nodded and took another drink. Ryan might not have the balls to drink hard liquor, but Chad wasn't about to run from that challenge. Maybe the _real_ stuff would make him feel better, since the beer obviously wasn't helping his mood. He'd been to enough team parties to know that Jason was a no-nonsense bartender – taste didn't matter to him, only the proof. And from the way this was burning as it went down, the proof was higher than normal tonight. Happy Graduation.

Alcohol usually loosened Chad up, relaxed him. But tonight was different – instead of making him feel relaxed it just made him more...confused? Chad couldn't even pinpoint what he was feeling, but he hoped that drinking more would set everything right.

----

Ryan patiently watched Chad nurse his drink. He could tell the basketball player was already drunk, so he didn't feel guilty about plying him with more alcohol. Ryan hadn't had anything to drink other than water all night – he knew from experience he needed to keep hydrated if he was going to dance for hours. Also, he didn't want anything to dull how he was feeling tonight, this feeling of pure bliss.

The music continued below, and Ryan couldn't help but bop to the music. He was thankful that Kelsi had let him take over after she was done deejaying – he'd merely plugged in his ipod and set it to randomly shuffle through his dance music. It was a testament to his music choices that it took over an hour before the other dancers even noticed Kelsi had left. Now the other dancers had left as well, leaving the music to play on with only Ryan to appreciate it.

As yet another song started, Ryan grinned to himself. Sharpay had given him grief earlier when his ipod had played a song from _Disco's Greatest Groups_, but now Ryan was glad he'd ignored his sister and left the songs in the mix. The song that was now starting couldn't be more perfect for his current situation.

Ryan carefully grabbed the nearly empty cup from Chad, teasing, "It's time to put that magic potion to the test."

"Huh?" Chad looked blankly at him, obviously having forgotten the phrase.

"It's time to dance," Ryan put more succinctly.

Chad shook his head. "You go ahead. I don't wanna go down there."

"No need – we can dance from right here."

Chad squinted his eyes in confusion, so Ryan explained, "We don't even need to stand. We can sit right here and dance." As the chorus began, Ryan raised his arms in the air, singing along, "'Y.M.C.A.'" He then turned to Chad. "C'mon, you know this. 'Y.M.C.A.'"

Chad rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "I don't dance, Evans."

"You do tonight." Ryan leaned over and grabbed the boy's muscled arms from behind, raising them to form the letters. Chad didn't resist – in fact, he seemed to relax completely, letting Ryan take the lead.

Ryan took this as a good sign.

----

The feel of Ryan's hands against his bare skin sent a thrill through Chad's entire body. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. So he let Ryan lead him through the entire corny party song, dancing with their hands to the beat during the verses and forming the title letters with their arms over and over at every chorus. This was the best Chad had felt all evening, and he was disappointed when the song ended and Ryan let go.

Before Chad could wonder what would happen next, Ryan announced, "Warm-up's over." Ryan jumped to his feet and, extending a hand, said, "C'mon. It's time to do this for real."

Chad felt a shiver down his spine, unsure what Ryan meant. But not wanting this feeling to end, he took the boy's hand and let Ryan pull him to his feet.

"Let's dance," Ryan said, dropping Chad's hand and starting to boogie across the treehouse.

Chad didn't know what he'd expected, but he was somehow disappointed that this was all Ryan had meant. He stood there, watching Ryan swivel his hips to the beat, mesmerized by the way he moved.

"C'mon," Ryan said, grabbing Chad's hand and attempting to get him to join in. "Dancing is not a spectator sport."

At his touch, Chad once again felt a thrill, and he gripped Ryan's hand tightly, determined not to let this feeling slip through his fingers.

Ryan smiled and easily adjusted to dancing with Chad's hand in his, dancing forward and backward several times before twirling underneath Chad's arm.

Chad laughed and shook his head. "This is insane."

"Dancing isn't insane," Ryan insisted with a smile. "Dancing is life." And before Chad knew it, Ryan had his arms around him and was dancing him across the treehouse. Chad gasped, partly startled but mainly thrilled at the feel of Ryan's body so close to his.

He hoped this song would never end.

----

Ryan couldn't believe that Chad was simply going along with this. Either the "magic potion" truly had worked, or else Chad liked dancing more than he let on.

Ryan knew that Chad had real grace, having watched him on the basketball court and worked with him during the spring show. But none of that grace was present now. The boy was tripping every few steps, probably a result of the alcohol. So Ryan pulled him closer in ballroom position to better lead him.

Instead of being met with resistance, Ryan found that Chad seemed to enjoy the closeness. Ryan could smell the alcohol on his breath, but looking into Chad's eyes he realized they seemed focused and full of hunger. Ryan hadn't been expecting that, and it momentarily threw him off. He accidentally tripped over Chad's foot and started to fall backwards, pulling Chad with him. Ryan cringed, anticipating the impact of his head against the treehouse wall, thankful that they hadn't been dancing by the edge. But before Ryan knew what was happening, Chad reached out, bracing himself against the wall with one hand while pulling Ryan close to him with the other, preventing them both from hitting the wall.

Once Ryan was aware that he was no longer in any danger, he stammered, "Uh...thanks."

"No problem." His face was mere inches from Ryan's as he continued to hold tight, and his breathless tone betrayed his calm words.

Ryan couldn't pass up this opportunity. Before allowing himself to think, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Chad's.

The kiss only lasted for a split second. Then Ryan felt Chad's arms suddenly release him as the basketball player quickly stepped back, putting some distance between them.

Ryan instantly realized he'd blown it. They'd been having such a good time, and now he'd gone and made a mess of it all by taking things too fast. He sighed, frustrated with himself and disappointed that this was all over, thanks to one stolen kiss.

"Sorry," Ryan mumbled. Heading towards the ladder, he added, "I should go."

But Chad grabbed Ryan's hand before he'd gotten far. "Don't go," Chad said quietly.

"You sure?"

Chad nodded. "Stay as long as you like."

Ryan smiled, but the moment was over. He wasn't going to press his luck again, and it would be awkward to merely go back to dancing. Gesturing to the now-empty yard, Ryan said, "We should probably both go – I think the party's over."

But Chad didn't look convinced.

----

One kiss, and suddenly it all made sense: his attachment to Troy, his failed relationship with Taylor, his fear at being "freed" from the bonds of high school. One kiss, and it was easy for Chad to see why he'd always felt different, why he'd hid behind the role of class clown. One kiss, and he knew the truth.

And instead of being freaked out, the knowledge almost came as a relief. He'd spent the entire evening – correction, the entire year – worried about where his true future lay. But he now realized it was less a question of "where" but of "who" he was that had been troubling him, and now he knew.

And knowing was half the battle! Wasn't that what he and Troy used to yell as they played G.I. Joe in this very treehouse? Chad finally understood the truth behind those words, and he was eager to charge full steam ahead into this "battle". He wasn't sure where all this would lead, but he was determined to enjoy the trip.

But now Ryan was leaving, with some excuse about the party being over. Didn't Ryan realize that right here, right now was where the party started? The two of them, all alone – the possibilities were endless!

But currently the only possibility on Chad's mind was getting to touch Ryan again. The mere touch of Ryan's hand left him breathless, and the touch of Ryan's lips had been eye-opening to say the least. Chad wanted to feel that again, wanted to feel it forever! No wonder he wasn't worried about saying goodbye to Taylor – she'd _never_ made him feel like this. It was all so obvious now!

Tugging on Ryan's hand, Chad pulled him close again. But as the distance between them shrank, so did Chad's courage. If he did what he was longing to do, there would be no going back. Chad thought about how Troy would react, how Taylor would react, how his _parents_ would react if they learned the truth about him, and he was suddenly overcome with fear. The same fear, he realized, that he'd been feeling all evening.

Ryan must've sensed Chad's doubts for he leaned in, carefully brushing Chad's hair aside to whisper in his ear, "No one has to know."

And Chad knew that, despite his fears, he wouldn't put up a fight. Not tonight. Not ever.

----

"Where've you been?!" Sharpay's shrill voice called out to Ryan the moment he stepped inside the Boltons' house.

"Sshhh!" Ryan said, putting a finger to his lips. The last thing they needed was to wake up Coach Bolton at this hour.

Sharpay merely rolled her eyes in annoyance. Then, raising an eyebrow and putting a hand on her hip, she gave her brother a once-over. "It's obvious what you've been up to. So who's the lucky boy?"

Ryan grinned. "You know I don't kiss and tell."

"Since _when_?"

Sharpay was right – he knew she'd get all the details out of him on the way home, just like she always did. And vice versa. Not that he really _wanted_ to know about her escapades, but she was bound to share.

With his thumb he gently brushed a smear of flour off Sharpay's cheek. "It's obvious what _you've_ been up to, too, you know."

"I know!" Sharpay grinned smugly, looking like a cat who'd just eaten a canary.

Ryan wondered if his grin looked the same.

**THE END**


End file.
